Oh cool, good to see the power button is still on the other side of the fucking menu. You know, the thing that I'm clicking on 90% of the time I'm opening the Start Menu? Why have that easily reachable like in past versions of Windows? Silly me I guess.
Gnome is still a bit quirky to me and I've been running it on my latest install. I still don't get their idea of by default, without extensions, how I'm supposed to use software that requires a tray icon to use.
I guess the difference is that the Gnome overview has been thought out amazingly, has a fantastic search function that actually works, and Gnome takes heavy advantage of their superb implementation of workspaces (virtual desktops).
Gnome doesn't really feel designed for tablets, it feels designed for everything. Hot corners, large click targets, and having good keyboard shortcuts makes it feel good on a desktop, amazing trackpad gestures make it feel at home on a laptop.
Win8 had options scattered everywhere, a search that was just starting to turn bad, and initially did silly things like only let you use one app at a time, no matter your screen size. It was forcing a tablet UX that just felt wrong on a PC.
I think Microsoft were hoping thin and light foldable/tablet devices (that were all the rage at that point) were a good way to sell more windows licenses (thin and lights are weaker hardware so will likely need updated more to keep up with performance demands), hinges are weak points so hardware will be replaced more, all meaning more licenses sold. They were trying to force Windows down this path, IMO. When that failed, they turned to much greater data harvesting, ads, etc.
Come on, it's totally intuitive! Just put your mouse in the top right corner, off the screen, and swipe down to make the "charms" bar slide out from the side.
Yeach the ui sucked, kinda sucked. I actually kinda liked it on 8.1 . But the one thing windows 8 did right was efficiency.
I still remember my update from windows 8 to 10 when witcher 3 on my laptop went from barerly playbale to unplaybale. Sad story.
Just wait. At the rate they're going it won't be long before you're forced to sit through a 30 second full screen ad in order to even open the start menu.
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I was about to comment this. And to anyone saying they are taking that away we all know how bad they are at removing legacy options so I'm sure this will be here until at least windows 14.
There's two reasons I tend to use the software button. I know for a fact that clicking "Shut Down" will actually shut down the computer. If I press the hardware button, the computer usually is configured by default to sleep. Yes, I could change this default behaviour on all the devices I use, but then there's the second reason:
From a psychological perspective, I tend to associate the hardware button as a "only use if system is locked up" button.
Yep, if you're in charge of managing hundreds of computers, you don't want to guess at what it'll do. We have our defaults but also have people who make exceptions depending on their own work needs. Tbh, I rarely use that button anyhow though, I right click on the start menu to get that menu instead and use shutdown, restart, or log out.
Further reason, the physical button isn't always in a location that's convenient to push. Sure it's usually accessible, but sometimes it's under a desk or behind a monitor or some other awkward location. Mouse and keyboard by their nature are always located in a conveniently accessible location.
Sometimes people manage other computers so it's not practical to configure all of them and you can't trust what people have configured for the power button
Pressing Alt + F4 on the desktop brings up the Shutdown menu. You can fully navigate it using the keyboard. Back in my Windows times I found this more convenient than using the start menu.